Life Lessons from an Otter Pup

Otter the Great Dane Puppy is spending the weekend at the farm with us. He's only three and a half months old and already he's teaching us a few things about life. Here's what he has to say:

1) Life is all about play time. Play time should only be interrupted for occasional musts like sleep, food, and potty breaks. In fact, potty breaks should be put off as long as possible during play time. Oops, did I do that?

2) Accidents happen. When they do it is best to look very sorry and then snuggle up to whoever seems the most upset by them.

3) Sleep can occur at any given moment and should never be confined strictly to human sleep times. When you need sleep it is best to find a seriously comfortable place. I highly recommend crashing on top of the nearest human.

4) If at first you don't succeed in making friends, try, try again. The power of cuddling is always your greatest asset. However, this seems to work better on humans than on other dogs. Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out the whole making friends with other dogs thing. I've opted to forgo friendship with cats all together. I highly recommend giving them a very wide berth at all times.

I hope these lessons will be useful to you all! Now, I have to be going. Play time is here!

Don't Piss Off the Diva Dogs

Cinco says WTF?

This weekend, Cinco and I are hosting some unexpected visitors. I'm more excited about this than Cinco seems to be, I have to admit. My long lost friend Linda came up for the weekend and where ever she goes, so goes her little doggie, The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Cinco and Molly have long been friends, though they have some sort of unspoken mutual Diva understanding between them about which human belongs to who, and just how much attention mongering will be tolerated. If either Linda or myself step out of line, we get shunned by the Divas who then go off and sulk together. Let's not tell them how humorous we find this, shall we?

Molly Christmas Morning 2008

The wild card in the mix is my pet sitting client's new Great Dane Puppy, Otter. Poor boy is clueless when it comes to the rules. Any rules. And certainly any rules involving Divas. Otter is only three months old, not yet old enough for overnights alone, so I agreed to keep him at my house for the weekend. He is a rambunctious little guy, but oh my gosh what a sweet cuddler. This is not going over well with either of the Diva dogs. Both have made it clear they are no longer speaking to the humans in the house, nor each other, and the only things they've had to say to the pesky newcomer have not been kind. I tried to get a current picture of Molly to share, but she effectively gave the paparazzi the doggy finger. Apparently, there will be no pictures while we have that thing in the house!

Otter with Linda

Poor Otter. He just wants to be loved. Is that so much to ask? Anyway, my hands will be full this weekend. Good thing there is a kennel for the puppy and a baby gate to separate everyone. Lesson learned. Never piss of the Diva Dogs. 

Otter Loves Me!